Sword and Arrow

Chapter 27

Beruthiel grabbed her bow and quiver, tossed her cloaks into her pack (you never knew), and dashed off into the woods after the hobbits. Aragorn had gone after the direction they assumed Frodo had gone, and Legolas and Gimli had followed him. But she darted after Merry and Pippin. Those two had no fighting experience whatsoever and she felt that she had a duty toward them.

Beruthiel ran light-footed as she was trained to, following the light footprints left in the soft soil. Her bow was in her hand and her quiver made no noise at her waist as she ducked underneath hanging branches, wove around trees, and leaped over roots. She forced herself to stop panting from the sprint and to open her ears to the sounds around her, to listen. The soft, nearly imperceptible sounds of her feet hitting the ground faded away and the songs of birds and the cries of animals filled her ears.

And then they stopped and the forest went silent.

Beruthiel entered a new part of the forest, a part she had not scouted. The thick underbrush faded away to a sparse forest of young pines, the forest floor strewn with needles and cones and dotted with sharp rocks. Gone were the gnarled old firs and the young elms and slick moss and twisted roots underfoot. In this forest, there was nothing much to hide behind and rather hard to camouflage with her green cloak.

Beruthiel silently came to a stop and slowed her breathing. Her hand went to her quiver but she forced herself to pull it away. Questions first, shoot later, she told herself. You are not a Southron or a jumpy rabbit.

It was unnervingly quiet, the kind of quiet in a forest that she had learned signaled that something was wrong. Keeping her hood over her head (though it would do her little good in this brown and gold forest), she glided forward through the wood.

The commotion greeted her. The whiz of arrow and the clash of steel echoed in the air as one and a half figures faced off against a blotch of black iron. Legolas and Gimli. Legolas took the highest ground, picking off the ones who tried to take Gimli from behind — or tried to escape. Gimli was a whirlwind of axe and red beard in front of Legolas.

Beruthiel paused on top of the hill, then leapt down from the ridge and landed in a crouch. Save the arrows for later. You never know when you would need them. But now... Beruthiel unsheathed her saxe and throwing knife with a shing and a gleam of sunlight on metal.

🗡️👑🏹

Aragorn followed Frodo's tracks far from the campsite to a place that he had once visited, long ago: Amon Hen, the Tower of Sight. The hobbit stood at the peak of the hill, gazing into the East where red tinged the sky. "Frodo?" he cautiously called, panting from his run.

Frodo whirled around, his face panicked. "It— it has taken Boromir," he stammered.

Aragorn moved closer and the hobbit moved away. "Where is the Ring?" he demanded.

"Stay away!" Frodo cried, scrambling away. Aragorn followed. He needed that Ring.

"Frodo!" Aragorn called after him. The hobbit stopped and slowly turned around. "I swore to protect you!"

"Can you protect me from yourself?" The Ring lay on Frodo's palm. Right there, glinting gold in the afternoon sun. "Would you destroy it?"

Aragorn hesitated. Would he destroy it? Did he have it in him to stand above that flowing fire and destroy that Ring that would give him so much power? He made his decision and knelt in front of Frodo. He reached out for the Ring, transfixed, then paused. What would Beruthiel think of him? What would Boromir think of him? He was not a monster. He was not evil. If he was to be the goodhearted person that his friends believed him to be, he could not take this. This Ring was not his. It was not Frodo's. It was Sauron's, and it needed to be destroyed. He changed his mind at the last moment and instead of taking the band of gold, he took the hobbit's hand and folded it around the Ring and pushed it toward the hobbit's chest.